The apexis gear that is currently in game is being changed from needing apexis crystals to buy them to needing gold instead. I've seen a lot of hubbub about it being pay to win, which in all honesty makes me laugh.
First off, the top pieces are only 675 and are poorly itemized for most classes. Secondly, no one in their right mind would call being geared with just a few pieces of 675 gear "winning". And last but not least, the player makes the gear, the gear does not make the player.
You can give a player the best gear in the game, if they are not very good at what they do they will still be bad at it even with gear. A good player however could, and will, be capable of catching up a tiny bit quicker with a few pieces like that because they know how to make the most of the gear they have. But even at that, a good player would be smart enough to realize that there are better gearing options besides wasting their gold on crappy apexis crystal gear pieces.
So we can put this entire pay to win conversation to rest. Selling apexis crystal gear for gold come 6.2 is not pay to win. However I do question blizzards motivation in pricing. The fact that the top piece of gear, the 675 piece, costs the exact amount that a wow token costs (in the US) can not just be thrown to the side and dismissed as coincidence. I am sorry, but a game this complex and well planned (even if we might disagree with some decisions) does not have a coincidence like that just happen.
So I can support the people wearing the tin foil hats that believe blizzard changed those pieces to gold as a way to try to get people with bad luck, less play time, or trying to catch up to buy wow tokens. It makes perfect sense, it is a solid business plan and as previously mentioned, being the gear will be garbage compared to the current level of gear, no one could call it pay to win either.
The only real complaint I can see anyone having about this is it is completely unfair by region to those that might wish to purchase said gear for gold through the sale of the wow token. In the US you can buy one piece for a wow token, in the UK you can buy two pieces per wow token and in places like Taiwan you can buy all the pieces for two or even three characters for the cost of one wow token. I agree 100%, this is completely unfair business practice, basically charging the US twice as much as the UK to buy gear for cash and more than 10 times as much as some other areas.
The reason you will not see blizzard change the gold cost for these pieces to reflect the regions a player is in is because as long as they don't they can argue that these things are not being changed to be purchased by gold in an attempt to sell tokens. It is a fair and reasonable argument on their part too. So while we might tin foil hat over it, they have the prefect defense. If one piece were meant to be one token sale, the prices would be different by region. So they just set it to the lowest common number, being the US numbers, and the other regions get lucky.
Heck, if I could sell wow tokens for what Taiwan's prices, I would, and I do not even need the gold, because that is so much it makes it seem worth it, but the pricing of tokens is another topic all together. This is about apexis gear.
With 6.2 a new set of apeixs gear is being added to timeless island 2.0, also known as Tanaan. Just like timeless island had tokens that dropped, or could be purchased, that could be turned into 496 gear and upgrade pieces that could be purchased to upgrade them to 535 gear, Tanaan has drops that turn into 650 gear and upgrades you can buy for them that make them 695.
It seems blizzard is intent on making this the new catch up mechanic. I would much prefer valor gear thank your very much, but that too is a post for another day. If this is going to be our catch up mechanic from now on I would like to see one change made. A change many people asked for during the time of the timeless island. A change that had multiple posts about it on the offical forums, other forums, blogs and every other place people could voice opinions.
The change? That the upgrade pieces become BoA just like the base gear pieces are.
I am sure I am not the only person out there that ended up with 9 burdens of eternity and enough coins to buy another 10 after the first week of the timeless island alone on my main. A main who, mind you, did not need 535 pieces because he had better gear already. Yet I had many alts that would have loved to have some 535 pieces and they never got any to drop except for the two guaranteed.
The upgrade pieces should be BoA. There is still time to do this blizzard. There is time to make the change. Make them BoA. If this is supposed to be a catch up mechanic, let me use it as such. Let me not end up with a main that has tons of the upgrades and can afford a million more than needs none of them and the alts that need the catch up never have any and can never afford any because their gear sucks so they can not grind out the apexis crystals like my main could in an efficient manner.
This is a change that must happen. It has to happen. Otherwise this entire thing is just a complete carbon copy of timeless island. Shouldn't you try to fix the mistakes made in timeless 1.0 in timeless 2.0? One of the biggest mistakes of timeless island was the fact that the burdens of eternity were not BoA. Learn from the past blizzard, please.
Outside of this one major fault, the next major fault of the apexis grind is that is all it is, an apexis grind. Mounts for 150K, 50K, pets, toys, etc. All purchased with apexis crystals.
I am not complaining about the catch up system (outside of it not being BoA) because it is a reasonable catch up system with 695 gear. Can get you right into hellfire if you manage to scrounge up enough apexis crystals to upgrade everything. What I am complaining about is how much grinding is needed.
Lets forget who is currently writing this at the moment and the fact I actually love grinding stuff like this. I love seeing there is a mount for 250,000 apexis crystals. I would rather grind 250,000 apexis crystals and get the mount for 100% certain than kill some rare mob 300 times for a 1% drop I never seem to get anyway. No thank you. I love things you can work for, I love things where you can see the reward for your effort, I love things were I can see myself getting closer to it. This is my kind of thing. Sure I would have liked dungeons and dailies and other stuff to do, but having a grind at least gives me something to do.
But, back on topic. Most people are not me. As a matter of fact I am like the 1% of the 1% that likes to do things like this. I like this sort of thing (as long as it is not mandatory and I have to do it on my alts too) but most people hate it. I mean really really hate it. For as much as I might like it I understand the game is not designed for me and me alone, and this just does not cut it. Not when most people hate grinding like this.
So, if I like this sort of thing and look at those prices and think "these things cost a lot" can you imagine what everyone else is going to say when they see them? If I like doing this and think that is a lot of grinding, does blizzard really think the people that don't like grinding are going to be happy with it?
I think blizzard made an insanely huge mistake with apexis costs on these items. The base pieces should be 1K, max, and the upgrade piece should be 2.5K, max. It should not be 20K for an upgrade. 20K apexis crystals is a lot and even if they are dropping like candy, that still requires time being put into it and sorry to say it but the player base as it is does not really strike me as the type that likes to work for their rewards. At least not when it comes to killing the same mobs over and over for weeks on end to save up enough crystals to buy one single upgrade.
This is also another reason why I think the upgrades should be BoA. Can you imagine how much people are going to hate grinding to begin with? Now if they were going to do it, what do you think they would have more fun doing it on? The main with high DPS or the alt with dreadful gear and dreadful numbers?
The main should be able to grind it out for the alt because it would be more fun for people to do it on their main. But fun really is a moot point here, because outside of me, I really do not see anyone calling what they have planned for us in 6.2 "fun". I can actually see most people seeing it as annoying, horrible, dreadful, and one hundred other not so nice words describing it. Incoming sub loss is all but guaranteed.
Blizzard really struck out with the apexis gear, even if they could have made it so much better. It was crappy, over priced, and useless in the first incarnation and it is way over priced, random number generated garbage that will cost hours in terms of grinding to get in the second incarnation.
Two strikes on apexis gear this far blizzard. Please do not tell me you are going to try again. Just give it up already and put valor gear back in.
Are you ready to get your grind on? If you plan on gearing up through timeless island 2.0 and buying all the goodies, you could be looking upwards or 400K apexis crystals. That's a lot grinding. Hope you like killing the same mob over and over again.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Are You a Selfish Player?
I have a confession to make. I am a selfish player. Always have been and always will be. But there are different levels of selfish as I have come to learn over the years. While I am always looking out for number one, the dashing night elf hunter that I am, I would never turn a fellow player down if they asked for help.
If you need help with an old achievement, ask and I will be there. If you need a portal somewhere, I'll switch to my mage and get you there. If you need a tank or healer for a quick queue, I'll help you out. If you need 8 primal air to make that transmog piece you were looking for, no worries my bank alt has them and you can have them for free.
I have always tried to be helpful when I can. If there is something you need that I can help you with you can be damn sure I will help you. You can always count on me from something that would need a lot of effort to something even as simple as it can be.
If you have a question about the game I'll help you out as best I can. If I do not know the answer I will look it up for you. I will help you with setting up addons, I will help you making macros, I will help you learn to key bind. I will spend time looking over your logs trying to see how you can get better. Even if it is not a class I know I will read up on the class just so I can help you.
With all that said, I don't sound very selfish do I?
The thing is I help people because they help me. I do like to help people, that much is true, but there is always that little voice in the back of my head reminding me that if I help people then they will help me. So even if I don't mind helping, I am helping for selfish reasons. Because some day I might ask them for help and I hope they remember I helped them so they will, in turn, help me.
In the grand scheme of things I don't think me being selfish in the way I am is a bad thing over all. It might just be me rationalizing, but I believe that if all selfish people acted the way I do it would be better for the game. We would all be helping each other that way, in hopes to get some help later in return. Not a bad thing right?
There are different degrees of selfishness of course and I've experienced a lot of different levels of it but there is only one I really dislike, one I will call compete selfishness. I've experienced it most recently when someone who signed up for the normal run on the weekend said they did not want to come because they did not need any of the early bosses, but maybe they would come when we got further in to a boss they needed something from.
They wanted us to find another tank, let that tank do all the work on the early bosses and then when we got to the bosses they needed they wanted us to kick that tank and let them come in. Sorry, we do not work that way. If someone is going to kill the first 7 with us, they are welcome to stay for the last 3. We are not going to remove them just to accommodate your own selfishness.
They had that attitude that they would only do something if there is something in it for them. They did not care that it would help everyone else around them and then in turn those people would help them kill the bosses they needed. Nope. They only wanted to do the bosses they needed and did not care if they had to displace someone else because of it.
This is the type of selfishness that I think the game can do without. The sad part is I am seeing this type of selfishness a lot more in the game lately. More this expansion than I have seen in all my previous years playing combined.
Someone might call my selfishness just as bad, but at least I admit that I help others hoping they will help me in return. I am not just a take take take individual, like this selfish person is. I help others, even if I might have ulterior motives.
I wonder if it is just something I noticed or if others have as well. That people just seem to be way more selfish than they used to be. They seem to not go by the old standard of I help you so you can help me that I use and it seems like everyone used to use.
Do you think it is a generational thing? The people in the game are the next generation of gamers, the xbox generation as I call it. The type that only wants what benefits them and nothing else. Or do you think it has something to do with the way the game has changed over the years leading people to act like this more. Maybe a little bit of both.
I believe, to some extent, we are all selfish to some degree. But this complete selfishness it just getting out of hand.
If you need help with an old achievement, ask and I will be there. If you need a portal somewhere, I'll switch to my mage and get you there. If you need a tank or healer for a quick queue, I'll help you out. If you need 8 primal air to make that transmog piece you were looking for, no worries my bank alt has them and you can have them for free.
I have always tried to be helpful when I can. If there is something you need that I can help you with you can be damn sure I will help you. You can always count on me from something that would need a lot of effort to something even as simple as it can be.
If you have a question about the game I'll help you out as best I can. If I do not know the answer I will look it up for you. I will help you with setting up addons, I will help you making macros, I will help you learn to key bind. I will spend time looking over your logs trying to see how you can get better. Even if it is not a class I know I will read up on the class just so I can help you.
With all that said, I don't sound very selfish do I?
The thing is I help people because they help me. I do like to help people, that much is true, but there is always that little voice in the back of my head reminding me that if I help people then they will help me. So even if I don't mind helping, I am helping for selfish reasons. Because some day I might ask them for help and I hope they remember I helped them so they will, in turn, help me.
In the grand scheme of things I don't think me being selfish in the way I am is a bad thing over all. It might just be me rationalizing, but I believe that if all selfish people acted the way I do it would be better for the game. We would all be helping each other that way, in hopes to get some help later in return. Not a bad thing right?
There are different degrees of selfishness of course and I've experienced a lot of different levels of it but there is only one I really dislike, one I will call compete selfishness. I've experienced it most recently when someone who signed up for the normal run on the weekend said they did not want to come because they did not need any of the early bosses, but maybe they would come when we got further in to a boss they needed something from.
They wanted us to find another tank, let that tank do all the work on the early bosses and then when we got to the bosses they needed they wanted us to kick that tank and let them come in. Sorry, we do not work that way. If someone is going to kill the first 7 with us, they are welcome to stay for the last 3. We are not going to remove them just to accommodate your own selfishness.
They had that attitude that they would only do something if there is something in it for them. They did not care that it would help everyone else around them and then in turn those people would help them kill the bosses they needed. Nope. They only wanted to do the bosses they needed and did not care if they had to displace someone else because of it.
This is the type of selfishness that I think the game can do without. The sad part is I am seeing this type of selfishness a lot more in the game lately. More this expansion than I have seen in all my previous years playing combined.
Someone might call my selfishness just as bad, but at least I admit that I help others hoping they will help me in return. I am not just a take take take individual, like this selfish person is. I help others, even if I might have ulterior motives.
I wonder if it is just something I noticed or if others have as well. That people just seem to be way more selfish than they used to be. They seem to not go by the old standard of I help you so you can help me that I use and it seems like everyone used to use.
Do you think it is a generational thing? The people in the game are the next generation of gamers, the xbox generation as I call it. The type that only wants what benefits them and nothing else. Or do you think it has something to do with the way the game has changed over the years leading people to act like this more. Maybe a little bit of both.
I believe, to some extent, we are all selfish to some degree. But this complete selfishness it just getting out of hand.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Monday Random Thoughts
- I finally got something to drop from my old raid soloing this weekend.
- Not a mount, but the legendary weapon from sunwell.
- That baby is even going to get put to good use soon too.
- With the timewalker dungeons coming out that will actually (or should) be best in slot for level 70.
- So I will get to use it at the appropriate level.
- Think I finally found a good use for timewalker dungeons, the ability to use old legendary items.
- I wonder if there are any best in slot lists for at level.
- Would not surprise me if someone already did them.
- But from what I hear it would really be over kill.
- They seem to be tuned for "fresh" 70s and 80s to do them, so if you are best in slot 70 or 80 you could easily solo them.
- Heck, I was soloing most level 80 dungeons before even ToC came out.
- So I think that is one best in slot list that would be over kill.
- Extreme over kill.
- But it will still be fun to use my new (old) legendary.
- I have a funny dungeon story to tell.
- Been doing my one daily dungeon on my horde hunter some days as it is still screaming in need of garrison resources.
- I get into skyreach, the group is rather week, bosses taking forever to go down.
- I am doing tops at 16K and that is more than double the second person, but we are not wiping, it is going fine, just taking a while.
- No complaints from me, I like smooth runs even if they might take a bit longer.
- First boss I get my dancing buff, second boss goes down fine, third boss take a long time and I did not even know it was possible for that many birds to spawn.
- On the way to the last boss one of the damage dealers says something I find quite funny.
- Not funny ha ha but funny as it shows my luck.
- Him: "Hunter, are you not gearing up on purpose?"
- Me: "This is a fresh 100 alt."
- Him: "No it is not, you have the 680 ring but no other gear."
- Me: "It only takes one day to get the 680 ring."
- Him: "No it doesn't."
- Me: "It did for me."
- So what did I find funny from this exchange?
- The fact it shows my luck, been through highmaul twice now, did all my dungeons for the ring and some others, and still can't get gear.
- Just my luck, so bad even someone else notices it.
- But the kicker was something I completely missed but a guild mate said to me when I told him the story.
- He said, "People in this game are amazing. I've heard them criticize low damage dealers before but never the top damage dealer for having bad gear. He should just be happy you were doing well in bad gear."
- I never thought of it that way.
- After he said that I thought, why would you complain the top damage dealer did not have good gear.
- If I were him and I saw the top damage dealer in 620 gear and he was beating me by 9K when I have 650 gear I most definitely would not open my mouth.
- Yes, I looked at his gear after he said something about mine.
- I should have asked him, how did you manage to have all 650 or better gear and still NOT have the 680 ring.
- Seriously, unless you do not want to get it or have been avoiding heroics, which can't be the case as we are in a heroic.
- I should have turned it on him and asked "Are you purposely not trying to get the legendary ring?"
- Me not having gear is bad luck, him not having the legendary ring quest started is choice.
- My friend was right, people in this game are amazing.
- And I do not mean amazing in a nice way.
- Up to 47 stones after two weeks, not so bad really, but kind of average.
- I still get from 1 to 6 per boss, just as I did the times before.
- Where is this increase they said they were giving people on alts?
- They should have increased it to 3 to 8 per boss.
- Not a lot more, but at least then it would have been noticeable.
- Heck, I would settle for just 1 cluster per boss.
- I'd be at 70 now if that were the case.
- More actually because of 2 missions for a total of 6 and a few form work orders.
- I should be at 80 right now, not 47, if they did actually increase the drop rate.
- Remember the new catch phrase.
- Blizzard lies.
- It will be more popular that "it will cost a raid tier" and it will be more honest than that too.
- Remember, blizzard lies, the truthful catch phrase.
- I am sure their marketing department will love it.
- "We are releasing the most content filled patch in the history of the game", was said in reference to 6.2, blizzard lies.
- "Flying will be added later after release, maybe with the first content patch.", blizzard lies.
- Nearly everything they say needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
- I am not a fan of salt and I have been having too much salt listening to everything they have to say.
- I think I have gotten to the point I would rather them not tell us anything at all instead of continually lying to us.
- We are better off not knowing, than hearing lies.
- So my warrior is on the last boss in the second highmaul LFR.
- Tank goes down, 30 seconds pass, no one revives him.
- Second tank goes down, I taunt, and being I am a gladiator, I start rolling the cooldowns I am capable of.
- One minute passes, no tanks revived.
- Two minutes pass, no tanks revived.
- Hey people, if the healers can not keep two actual tanks up I am not going to last long here as a DPS fake tanking, revive the damn tanks.
- Both tanks finally come up and we beat the boss nice and easy as it should be in LFR.
- So, the question is, do all damage dealers with a battle resurrection completely ignore what is going on around them?
- We had 2 locks, 4 DKs and 2 druids. That is 8 people, a third of the raid, that were capable of bring up the tanks and no one noticed for a full 2 minutes that there were no tanks?
- I find it hard that anyone could be that oblivious.
- I think it has something to do with the "someone else will do it" mentality.
- Every one of them thought someone else would do it.
- Reminds me of one BRF run a couple of months ago when I was first tanking and not on my hunter that night.
- On the trash before operator we kill the last guy before the gates open and are getting pounded by bombs.
- I said on voice chat, range, kill the cannons.
- It might sound hard to believe, but no one ever noticed they were there before.
- I am usually there on my hunter and I always kill them, they go down quick, but I never thought they went down so quick I am the only person that noticed they were even there.
- I was stunned that people just didn't notice it, they got so used to someone else doing it.
- I think that is what the battle rez thing comes from.
- People get so used to other people doing it, they do not even think to do it.
- In the end I got a nice little ego boost out of it however, in both cases.
- I did so well downing the cannons that no one noticed they were there. Go me.
- I tanked in gladiator stance and survived, even if it was only LFR. Go me.
- Sometimes small victories are all I have to enjoy, so I will take what little I can get.
- A little victory is better than none at all.
- My rogue, damn him, now has his two best in slot trinkets from BRF from missions, he has never even been in there.
- I think the game is telling me I need to play my rogue.
- Every time I do a mission, I get a piece of gear I need.
- Maybe because it has no gear otherwise, but you would have to think I would double up sooner or later.
- And when it does get a repeat it will have speed, or leech or indestructible on it, making it a minor, extremely minor, upgrade or be warforged or with a gem slot to make it a solid upgrade.
- In cataclysm my shaman was my lucky character, maybe this expansion it is time for my rogue.
- Should I attempt to start playing my rogue?
- It is melee, which I am not exactly fond of playing, but I do like feeling like I am moving forward, and maybe this might be my character to do it.
- Now if only I could start the legendary quest line on it.
- Nope, still has not done the dungeons in months.
- As that guy from my random said, there is no way to get it started in one day, it takes a long time.
- See, my rogue is proof. ;)
- I guess that showed me.
- I must have lied about doing all the dungeons in one day on my hunter, that is completely impossible.
- Impossible if it is me playing a rogue that is.
- I always queue up for them, but they never pop before I move to the next character.
- Unlike with my hunter, which I find things to do because I love playing hunters, when I am done with my garrison on my rogue if my queue has not popped, I am done playing my rogue.
- Really that simple.
- If there were still flying in game I would stay on my rogue and fly around while waiting, but that is another story all together.
- So it is not my fault my rogue isn't geared, it is blizzard fault for the long queue times.
- Yeah, that's the ticket.
- Always blame someone else.
- I think I can get a hang of this.
- Tricks of the trade to the mage then throw on a mob.
- Mage pulled, mage pulled.
- He he he.
- Blame someone else.
- Speaking of that, when Watcher does the live stream, who do you think he will blame?
- "Someone must have hacked my computer and said those snide twitter remarks, I never said them."
- A line like that will be coming soon to a live stream near you.
- I finished the field photography achievement this weekend.
- There are two things I learned this weekend from doing that.
- Flight really does rule, the game is way way way way better with it.
- And the game really needs invisible shoulders, or a hide shoulders option.
- I am not a selfie person, but really those shoulders get in the way.
- I might have only been doing it for achievement sake but I wanted the pictures to look nice and those shoulders got in the way every step of the way.
- I like the mail shoulders that drop from the salvage yard.
- Tried to mog into them but it would not let me.
- Why blizzard?
- Oh yeah, forgot about that, can't have people being happy.
- Why can't we have nice things blizzard?
- Have a great day.
- Not a mount, but the legendary weapon from sunwell.
- That baby is even going to get put to good use soon too.
- With the timewalker dungeons coming out that will actually (or should) be best in slot for level 70.
- So I will get to use it at the appropriate level.
- Think I finally found a good use for timewalker dungeons, the ability to use old legendary items.
- I wonder if there are any best in slot lists for at level.
- Would not surprise me if someone already did them.
- But from what I hear it would really be over kill.
- They seem to be tuned for "fresh" 70s and 80s to do them, so if you are best in slot 70 or 80 you could easily solo them.
- Heck, I was soloing most level 80 dungeons before even ToC came out.
- So I think that is one best in slot list that would be over kill.
- Extreme over kill.
- But it will still be fun to use my new (old) legendary.
- I have a funny dungeon story to tell.
- Been doing my one daily dungeon on my horde hunter some days as it is still screaming in need of garrison resources.
- I get into skyreach, the group is rather week, bosses taking forever to go down.
- I am doing tops at 16K and that is more than double the second person, but we are not wiping, it is going fine, just taking a while.
- No complaints from me, I like smooth runs even if they might take a bit longer.
- First boss I get my dancing buff, second boss goes down fine, third boss take a long time and I did not even know it was possible for that many birds to spawn.
- On the way to the last boss one of the damage dealers says something I find quite funny.
- Not funny ha ha but funny as it shows my luck.
- Him: "Hunter, are you not gearing up on purpose?"
- Me: "This is a fresh 100 alt."
- Him: "No it is not, you have the 680 ring but no other gear."
- Me: "It only takes one day to get the 680 ring."
- Him: "No it doesn't."
- Me: "It did for me."
- So what did I find funny from this exchange?
- The fact it shows my luck, been through highmaul twice now, did all my dungeons for the ring and some others, and still can't get gear.
- Just my luck, so bad even someone else notices it.
- But the kicker was something I completely missed but a guild mate said to me when I told him the story.
- He said, "People in this game are amazing. I've heard them criticize low damage dealers before but never the top damage dealer for having bad gear. He should just be happy you were doing well in bad gear."
- I never thought of it that way.
- After he said that I thought, why would you complain the top damage dealer did not have good gear.
- If I were him and I saw the top damage dealer in 620 gear and he was beating me by 9K when I have 650 gear I most definitely would not open my mouth.
- Yes, I looked at his gear after he said something about mine.
- I should have asked him, how did you manage to have all 650 or better gear and still NOT have the 680 ring.
- Seriously, unless you do not want to get it or have been avoiding heroics, which can't be the case as we are in a heroic.
- I should have turned it on him and asked "Are you purposely not trying to get the legendary ring?"
- Me not having gear is bad luck, him not having the legendary ring quest started is choice.
- My friend was right, people in this game are amazing.
- And I do not mean amazing in a nice way.
- Up to 47 stones after two weeks, not so bad really, but kind of average.
- I still get from 1 to 6 per boss, just as I did the times before.
- Where is this increase they said they were giving people on alts?
- They should have increased it to 3 to 8 per boss.
- Not a lot more, but at least then it would have been noticeable.
- Heck, I would settle for just 1 cluster per boss.
- I'd be at 70 now if that were the case.
- More actually because of 2 missions for a total of 6 and a few form work orders.
- I should be at 80 right now, not 47, if they did actually increase the drop rate.
- Remember the new catch phrase.
- Blizzard lies.
- It will be more popular that "it will cost a raid tier" and it will be more honest than that too.
- Remember, blizzard lies, the truthful catch phrase.
- I am sure their marketing department will love it.
- "We are releasing the most content filled patch in the history of the game", was said in reference to 6.2, blizzard lies.
- "Flying will be added later after release, maybe with the first content patch.", blizzard lies.
- Nearly everything they say needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
- I am not a fan of salt and I have been having too much salt listening to everything they have to say.
- I think I have gotten to the point I would rather them not tell us anything at all instead of continually lying to us.
- We are better off not knowing, than hearing lies.
- So my warrior is on the last boss in the second highmaul LFR.
- Tank goes down, 30 seconds pass, no one revives him.
- Second tank goes down, I taunt, and being I am a gladiator, I start rolling the cooldowns I am capable of.
- One minute passes, no tanks revived.
- Two minutes pass, no tanks revived.
- Hey people, if the healers can not keep two actual tanks up I am not going to last long here as a DPS fake tanking, revive the damn tanks.
- Both tanks finally come up and we beat the boss nice and easy as it should be in LFR.
- So, the question is, do all damage dealers with a battle resurrection completely ignore what is going on around them?
- We had 2 locks, 4 DKs and 2 druids. That is 8 people, a third of the raid, that were capable of bring up the tanks and no one noticed for a full 2 minutes that there were no tanks?
- I find it hard that anyone could be that oblivious.
- I think it has something to do with the "someone else will do it" mentality.
- Every one of them thought someone else would do it.
- Reminds me of one BRF run a couple of months ago when I was first tanking and not on my hunter that night.
- On the trash before operator we kill the last guy before the gates open and are getting pounded by bombs.
- I said on voice chat, range, kill the cannons.
- It might sound hard to believe, but no one ever noticed they were there before.
- I am usually there on my hunter and I always kill them, they go down quick, but I never thought they went down so quick I am the only person that noticed they were even there.
- I was stunned that people just didn't notice it, they got so used to someone else doing it.
- I think that is what the battle rez thing comes from.
- People get so used to other people doing it, they do not even think to do it.
- In the end I got a nice little ego boost out of it however, in both cases.
- I did so well downing the cannons that no one noticed they were there. Go me.
- I tanked in gladiator stance and survived, even if it was only LFR. Go me.
- Sometimes small victories are all I have to enjoy, so I will take what little I can get.
- A little victory is better than none at all.
- My rogue, damn him, now has his two best in slot trinkets from BRF from missions, he has never even been in there.
- I think the game is telling me I need to play my rogue.
- Every time I do a mission, I get a piece of gear I need.
- Maybe because it has no gear otherwise, but you would have to think I would double up sooner or later.
- And when it does get a repeat it will have speed, or leech or indestructible on it, making it a minor, extremely minor, upgrade or be warforged or with a gem slot to make it a solid upgrade.
- In cataclysm my shaman was my lucky character, maybe this expansion it is time for my rogue.
- Should I attempt to start playing my rogue?
- It is melee, which I am not exactly fond of playing, but I do like feeling like I am moving forward, and maybe this might be my character to do it.
- Now if only I could start the legendary quest line on it.
- Nope, still has not done the dungeons in months.
- As that guy from my random said, there is no way to get it started in one day, it takes a long time.
- See, my rogue is proof. ;)
- I guess that showed me.
- I must have lied about doing all the dungeons in one day on my hunter, that is completely impossible.
- Impossible if it is me playing a rogue that is.
- I always queue up for them, but they never pop before I move to the next character.
- Unlike with my hunter, which I find things to do because I love playing hunters, when I am done with my garrison on my rogue if my queue has not popped, I am done playing my rogue.
- Really that simple.
- If there were still flying in game I would stay on my rogue and fly around while waiting, but that is another story all together.
- So it is not my fault my rogue isn't geared, it is blizzard fault for the long queue times.
- Yeah, that's the ticket.
- Always blame someone else.
- I think I can get a hang of this.
- Tricks of the trade to the mage then throw on a mob.
- Mage pulled, mage pulled.
- He he he.
- Blame someone else.
- Speaking of that, when Watcher does the live stream, who do you think he will blame?
- "Someone must have hacked my computer and said those snide twitter remarks, I never said them."
- A line like that will be coming soon to a live stream near you.
- I finished the field photography achievement this weekend.
- There are two things I learned this weekend from doing that.
- Flight really does rule, the game is way way way way better with it.
- And the game really needs invisible shoulders, or a hide shoulders option.
- I am not a selfie person, but really those shoulders get in the way.
- I might have only been doing it for achievement sake but I wanted the pictures to look nice and those shoulders got in the way every step of the way.
- I like the mail shoulders that drop from the salvage yard.
- Tried to mog into them but it would not let me.
- Why blizzard?
- Oh yeah, forgot about that, can't have people being happy.
- Why can't we have nice things blizzard?
- Have a great day.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Watcher Needs More Time to Formulate Answers
The developer Q & A originally scheduled for June 6th at 2PM has now needed to be changed, yet again, for the second time. Originally it was scheduled for 2PM and then the Heroes of the Storm live stream was added to be scheduled to run as competition with it, or at least part of it.
After some players complained that blizzard was trying to bury the Q & A by running the Heroes of the Storm live stream opposite of it they begrudgingly gave in and pushed the Q & A back an hour so that it would not run at the same time.
Blizzard was trying to pull a fast one and was hoping that people would not notice it, or would not complain about it, but they got caught with their pants down and had to make adjustments or look even worse in the eyes of an already upset with their recent actions community.
Now it seems they are pushing it back even further, not just the one hour it was originally pushed back for either, but an entire week, as if later that evening or Sunday, Monday, etc, would have been bad for some reason, they needed to push it back an entire week.
I do believe it was a good idea to move it personally but believe moving it to Sunday would have been more appropriate. The reason I support the move was that it would be a lot to ask of the player base that might have an interest in both games, and there are many that do, to watch four straight hours of live streams. So I am not taking a shot at blizzard for pushing the Q & A back, just maybe pushing it back to the 13th of June. It is a solid idea, but it also shows a little bit of the reason the game is in this type of trouble right now.
Mismanagement. That is the power word at blizzard right now. Mismanagement. They mismanaged their time developing warlords, that is why it was so late. They mismanaged what they assigned people to develop, that is why there is so little content. The mismanaged the people who talk to the players, that is why Watcher, and others, routinely have a foot firmly placed in their mouth. Blizzard is all about mismanagement.
That is how they managed to announce what I see to be a very important Q & A that I believe the people want to hear, no, need to hear, and then totally screw it up by scheduling something else at the same time.
Some might point out that it is not blizzard themselves doing the Heroes of the Storm live stream, but it is blizzard themselves that gave the okay for the live stream at that time. Just another case of mismanagement.
This is nothing new for blizzard. They have swung the pendulum to extremes for as long as I can remember. In wrath people complained dungeons were too easy, so they went too far in the other direction and in cataclysm they made dungeons too hard for the masses. In mists people complained about to many dailies that felt mandatory, so in warlords we are stuck with not even one single daily hub at all. Blizzard does not know how to do things in moderation, they only know full steam ahead in one direction or another and this can only be attributed to mismanagement.
So as I said, I agree with moving the Q & A to the 13th of June but what I don't agree with is the fact that they needed to move the Q & A at all. The Q & A was scheduled first. The Q & A is needed for a game that seems to currently be one in turmoil not the brand spanking new game that everyone will be playing because it is new anyway.
Not to mention the Q & A could very well be the make or break point for a lot of people that are looking at other games such as, but not limited to, FF 14s coming release on the 23rd of June with the eyes of someone looking to move on. The longer blizzard does not address their concerns the more likely they are to be upset with them and feel as if their concerns are being ignored.
This Q & A is a very important moment in the history of the game for both the developers and the players and blizzard is throwing it around like it is a meaningless talk about nothing of conciquence which will no doubt leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who really need to hear "the game is going to be fine."
But maybe blizzard knows that, maybe they are not throwing it around as if it means nothing. Maybe they realize that this could be the make or break moment for a bunch of people waiting on every word that comes out of Watchers mouth.
So perhaps Watcher just needs more time to formulate the answers he believes will sound best. Maybe Lore needs more time to pick out the questions that seem to address the concerns of the player base but are phrased in the most non threatening way possible.
Make no doubt that all the questions asked will be carefully selected as to not touch on anything they do not have an answer for and all the answers they do have will be completely 100% scripted so Watcher makes no mistakes saying the wrong thing. Remember, he is a lawyer after all, and he knows his words can be used again him, as they have been recently. So there will be no single word, either in question or answer, that is not preplanned.
So maybe blizzard is not throwing around the Q & A with disregard to the concerns of the player base or because of their ever present mismanagement issues, but because Watcher just needs a little more time to work on his closing argument... oh, sorry, I mean his answers.
Moving it back concerns me because it seems more of a move of politics and less a move with the thoughts of the people it matters most to.
After some players complained that blizzard was trying to bury the Q & A by running the Heroes of the Storm live stream opposite of it they begrudgingly gave in and pushed the Q & A back an hour so that it would not run at the same time.
Blizzard was trying to pull a fast one and was hoping that people would not notice it, or would not complain about it, but they got caught with their pants down and had to make adjustments or look even worse in the eyes of an already upset with their recent actions community.
Now it seems they are pushing it back even further, not just the one hour it was originally pushed back for either, but an entire week, as if later that evening or Sunday, Monday, etc, would have been bad for some reason, they needed to push it back an entire week.
I do believe it was a good idea to move it personally but believe moving it to Sunday would have been more appropriate. The reason I support the move was that it would be a lot to ask of the player base that might have an interest in both games, and there are many that do, to watch four straight hours of live streams. So I am not taking a shot at blizzard for pushing the Q & A back, just maybe pushing it back to the 13th of June. It is a solid idea, but it also shows a little bit of the reason the game is in this type of trouble right now.
Mismanagement. That is the power word at blizzard right now. Mismanagement. They mismanaged their time developing warlords, that is why it was so late. They mismanaged what they assigned people to develop, that is why there is so little content. The mismanaged the people who talk to the players, that is why Watcher, and others, routinely have a foot firmly placed in their mouth. Blizzard is all about mismanagement.
That is how they managed to announce what I see to be a very important Q & A that I believe the people want to hear, no, need to hear, and then totally screw it up by scheduling something else at the same time.
Some might point out that it is not blizzard themselves doing the Heroes of the Storm live stream, but it is blizzard themselves that gave the okay for the live stream at that time. Just another case of mismanagement.
This is nothing new for blizzard. They have swung the pendulum to extremes for as long as I can remember. In wrath people complained dungeons were too easy, so they went too far in the other direction and in cataclysm they made dungeons too hard for the masses. In mists people complained about to many dailies that felt mandatory, so in warlords we are stuck with not even one single daily hub at all. Blizzard does not know how to do things in moderation, they only know full steam ahead in one direction or another and this can only be attributed to mismanagement.
So as I said, I agree with moving the Q & A to the 13th of June but what I don't agree with is the fact that they needed to move the Q & A at all. The Q & A was scheduled first. The Q & A is needed for a game that seems to currently be one in turmoil not the brand spanking new game that everyone will be playing because it is new anyway.
Not to mention the Q & A could very well be the make or break point for a lot of people that are looking at other games such as, but not limited to, FF 14s coming release on the 23rd of June with the eyes of someone looking to move on. The longer blizzard does not address their concerns the more likely they are to be upset with them and feel as if their concerns are being ignored.
This Q & A is a very important moment in the history of the game for both the developers and the players and blizzard is throwing it around like it is a meaningless talk about nothing of conciquence which will no doubt leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who really need to hear "the game is going to be fine."
But maybe blizzard knows that, maybe they are not throwing it around as if it means nothing. Maybe they realize that this could be the make or break moment for a bunch of people waiting on every word that comes out of Watchers mouth.
So perhaps Watcher just needs more time to formulate the answers he believes will sound best. Maybe Lore needs more time to pick out the questions that seem to address the concerns of the player base but are phrased in the most non threatening way possible.
Make no doubt that all the questions asked will be carefully selected as to not touch on anything they do not have an answer for and all the answers they do have will be completely 100% scripted so Watcher makes no mistakes saying the wrong thing. Remember, he is a lawyer after all, and he knows his words can be used again him, as they have been recently. So there will be no single word, either in question or answer, that is not preplanned.
So maybe blizzard is not throwing around the Q & A with disregard to the concerns of the player base or because of their ever present mismanagement issues, but because Watcher just needs a little more time to work on his closing argument... oh, sorry, I mean his answers.
Moving it back concerns me because it seems more of a move of politics and less a move with the thoughts of the people it matters most to.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Some Profession Changes I'd Like to See
This post will not be about how to "fix" professions. That would be a much longer post that is more suited for the beginning of a new expansion. There is no fix for them now, they are what they are. That does not change the fact there are two simple changes I would like to see done that could make professions, in my opinion, so much better for the remainder of this expansion.
Crafted (3):
This restriction needs to be removed. Lets face it, the amount of materials needed to create an entire gear set in every slot would be insane. It would be to the point that only the most hardcore (in terms of time played) player would even be capable of considering being able to gear up that way.
The only other type of person that could take complete advantage of the crafted 3 limit being lifted would be the gold goblin but again, lets face it, the amount of gold needed to get each piece of gear to its top level and with the right stats would be insane. I was one of those people that were over gold cap before the expansion was released and I only increased that even with no effort to make gold, and I still would not touch gearing a character with gold this expansion with a 10 foot pole. It would just be way to costly and there are better ways to get gear.
However, at this point, why not let people do whatever they want with it? If they wish to spend countless hours collecting materials or making gold so they can either make or buy a piece for every slot, let them. I really am hard pressed to see how having people actually play the game is a bad thing, even if they are spending all their time gathering materials or making gold, at least they are playing.
I can see why at the start of the expansion they did not want anyone feeling they "had to" get all crafted gear to start raiding. They do things to try to protect us from ourselves in terms of burn out all the time and it makes sense. But now their reasoning behind the limit is not on as solid ground in terms of reasoning, even more so if this is indeed the "end" of the expansion.
If someone wants to spend the next 16 months (god forbid it happens again) crafting the perfect gear for all their alts, let them do it. At least it gives them something to do.
Soulbound:
Crafting material should not be soulbound. There, I could leave this right there and it says everything. I've been saying things like this for as long as I have played the game. Things like frozen orbs, chaos orbs, etc, should have never been soulbound. All crafting materials should not be soulbound.
If I want to build an engineering works in all my garrisons and send all the parts to my engineer, I should be allowed to. I see no reason why I shouldn't. I think it hurts the game more than it helps the game to make things like this soulbound.
Again, perhaps at the start of the expansion this made sense. Did not want people feeling they "had to" level as many characters as fast as possible so they could starting making tons of leather for their gear. Now, at this stage of the game, let people make, trade, or sell anything they want.
Even more so being this expansion seems to be all about gold as the default currency for everything, might as well allow people free trade with their crafting materials.
Best in Slot:
This is not a change I want, this is just a place to place my rebuttal to those that might say, if you do these changes it will allow people to have best in slot gear.
I will give you this following line. These changes will allow non raiders to have best in slot gear.
However, to anyone that raids heroic or higher this might give a few slots of best in slot gear while waiting on drops only. It will not give best in slot gear. Raid gear can be warforged, raid gear can have gem slots, raid gear can have both. Raid gear has better weapons, raid gear has better trinkets, and raid gear has tier sets.
So while these changes could mean someone can have one hell of an item level without actually raiding at a heroic level, it will not allow actual raiders to have best in slot gear. Put it this way, I have on three crafted and even if I could craft more I wouldn't. What I am wearing is better. These changes I seek for professions are for the majority of players who will never see the gear I, and the many ahead of me, are in.
So no, this will not allow everyone to have best in slot gear. It will however allow everyone to feel like they can still make some personal progression. By allowing them to make one new piece once in a while, to upgrade said piece once in a while, be it they are making it themselves or they are farming gold through hard work or the auction house so they can afford the gear.
Sorry, but if you were going to say you disliked this idea because it gives people best in slot gear I say no, it gives non raiders something to aim for and build up to. In other words, it gives people something to do and a reason to log in. Isn't that kind of important?
There they are, only two things I would like to see changed for this expansions professions. Things that I believe would be a positive for the game and the players. Now to think about what could be done for next expansion, because professions need a hell of a lot of work after what blizzard did to them this expansion.
Crafted (3):
This restriction needs to be removed. Lets face it, the amount of materials needed to create an entire gear set in every slot would be insane. It would be to the point that only the most hardcore (in terms of time played) player would even be capable of considering being able to gear up that way.
The only other type of person that could take complete advantage of the crafted 3 limit being lifted would be the gold goblin but again, lets face it, the amount of gold needed to get each piece of gear to its top level and with the right stats would be insane. I was one of those people that were over gold cap before the expansion was released and I only increased that even with no effort to make gold, and I still would not touch gearing a character with gold this expansion with a 10 foot pole. It would just be way to costly and there are better ways to get gear.
However, at this point, why not let people do whatever they want with it? If they wish to spend countless hours collecting materials or making gold so they can either make or buy a piece for every slot, let them. I really am hard pressed to see how having people actually play the game is a bad thing, even if they are spending all their time gathering materials or making gold, at least they are playing.
I can see why at the start of the expansion they did not want anyone feeling they "had to" get all crafted gear to start raiding. They do things to try to protect us from ourselves in terms of burn out all the time and it makes sense. But now their reasoning behind the limit is not on as solid ground in terms of reasoning, even more so if this is indeed the "end" of the expansion.
If someone wants to spend the next 16 months (god forbid it happens again) crafting the perfect gear for all their alts, let them do it. At least it gives them something to do.
Soulbound:
Crafting material should not be soulbound. There, I could leave this right there and it says everything. I've been saying things like this for as long as I have played the game. Things like frozen orbs, chaos orbs, etc, should have never been soulbound. All crafting materials should not be soulbound.
If I want to build an engineering works in all my garrisons and send all the parts to my engineer, I should be allowed to. I see no reason why I shouldn't. I think it hurts the game more than it helps the game to make things like this soulbound.
Again, perhaps at the start of the expansion this made sense. Did not want people feeling they "had to" level as many characters as fast as possible so they could starting making tons of leather for their gear. Now, at this stage of the game, let people make, trade, or sell anything they want.
Even more so being this expansion seems to be all about gold as the default currency for everything, might as well allow people free trade with their crafting materials.
Best in Slot:
This is not a change I want, this is just a place to place my rebuttal to those that might say, if you do these changes it will allow people to have best in slot gear.
I will give you this following line. These changes will allow non raiders to have best in slot gear.
However, to anyone that raids heroic or higher this might give a few slots of best in slot gear while waiting on drops only. It will not give best in slot gear. Raid gear can be warforged, raid gear can have gem slots, raid gear can have both. Raid gear has better weapons, raid gear has better trinkets, and raid gear has tier sets.
So while these changes could mean someone can have one hell of an item level without actually raiding at a heroic level, it will not allow actual raiders to have best in slot gear. Put it this way, I have on three crafted and even if I could craft more I wouldn't. What I am wearing is better. These changes I seek for professions are for the majority of players who will never see the gear I, and the many ahead of me, are in.
So no, this will not allow everyone to have best in slot gear. It will however allow everyone to feel like they can still make some personal progression. By allowing them to make one new piece once in a while, to upgrade said piece once in a while, be it they are making it themselves or they are farming gold through hard work or the auction house so they can afford the gear.
Sorry, but if you were going to say you disliked this idea because it gives people best in slot gear I say no, it gives non raiders something to aim for and build up to. In other words, it gives people something to do and a reason to log in. Isn't that kind of important?
There they are, only two things I would like to see changed for this expansions professions. Things that I believe would be a positive for the game and the players. Now to think about what could be done for next expansion, because professions need a hell of a lot of work after what blizzard did to them this expansion.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
What If: Sargeras is The Good Guy?
This post is purely speculation for the sake of fun. Reading into things what might not actually be there. A tin foil hat theory that maybe we have been looking at things the wrong way. The main idea of it is that we have been deceived and the true enemies are the Titans.
For as long as I have been looking into warcraft lore it has always been said that the real big bad of the entire series is Sargeras. That the battle against him would be the last battle, the end of warcraft as we know it. He is the largest threat we can and will ever face.
For a long time now I have been entertaining the idea that what we know is wrong. That the life we lead is not really our own, but we are being groomed as an army, and army for the Titans. Every step of the way, every thing we have done, was us being built into the ultimate army in service of our makers, the Titans.
It reminds me of the story from Wrath of the Lich King some. We never thought anything of it when Arthas came taunting us while we leveled up. We never even considered that he had a greater plan when we fought him, or more accurately, his subordinates along the way. In truth, to anyone that does not follow the lore they might not have noticed the underlining story in wrath and that was that we were not "fighting" our way to the Lich King, we were being groomed by him to become his next, and greatest, lieutenants. Battle tested by the best he could send our way.
He taunted us, he challenged us, he sent waves of enemies after us, but he never engaged us. He could have beaten any of us one on one at any given point, that is beyond contention, but he did not want us dead, he wanted us stronger. In those early days when we were weaker when we first stepped foot into Northrend, we would have been a push over. But did he kill us? No, he let us live to face another challenge.
When all was said and done and we met him face to face, when he allowed us to do so, we lost. He toyed with us the entire fight. We kept thinking we were getting the best of him but we were not. He was just pressing us harder and harder, pushing us to our limits as fighters, warriors, all so he could see if we were indeed worthy.
When he decides that he has had enough playing around and that we had proved ourselves worthy, he kills us. No long drawn out channeled spell. No big effort on his part. He just wishes us dead and we died, instantly, without him ever breaking a sweat.
The idea was that he was now going to revive us and we would be under his servitude. We would be the leaders of his greater, and now unbeatable, army. If the greatest Azeroth had to offer could be killed in an instant with no effort at all by him, what would it look like for the rest of the denizens of Azeroth if those heroes were raised on the side of the Lich King. Not good at all.
We ended up winning the battle with a little bit of luck, or make that a lot of luck. We were dead, we did lose, the Lich King was the most powerful enemy we had ever faced and remains so even up to this day. Even Deathwing, the unmaker of worlds needed a long, very long, cast time to destroy the world whereas Arthas simply wished us dead and we died. We were lucky, never doubt that.
It is that story, and in my opinion the best writing we have ever seen in the warcraft MMO, that made me think that perhaps Sargeras is the good guy. Because not everything always is as it appears. Is blizzard the type to develop such a great bait and switch like that? Keep us thinking that Sargeras is the bad guy only to find out that he is our one and only true savior. I doubt it. Most blizzard writing is not that deep or involved, at least not since the days of the Lich King. But that is where I let my imagination run away with me.
We thought we had the Lich King on the run, but he was playing with us. We never held the upper hand, we never had him running from us, we never had a prayer of beating him, even when he let us just waltz into his throne room. He has control the entire way. He manipulated every step we took, all in an effort to make us stronger. To make us better fighters. All so we would be more of a force to be reckoned with when he revived us as his lieutenants.
This is how I see what the Titans are doing. The Titans might not be these benevolent beings that gave us life, that shaped the world as we know it, that set things in motion so we could live our own lives.
What if the Titans, and everything we have experienced, are all planned out to make us stronger so we would be a more formidable army at their service. Just because we do not know of the great "Army of the Titans" doesn't mean that there is not one. There is very little we know of the Titans and most of what we know is speculation at least and tainted at best.
We believe that they could not kill the old gods so they imprisoned them beneath the crust of the ground. What proof do we have of that? None. What if they were completely capable of killing them, but they didn't for a reason. They wanted them under the ground, they wanted them whispering the murmurs into the minds of man, driving them insane. What if they wanted them there trying to corrupt us so it would weed out those weak of mind. That those whispers in our ears were a test to see who was weak of mind, to see who could resist the madness, to make sure the strong get stronger being able to resist such pressure from the old golds and the weak get eliminated.
The old gods could be a tool, just like we are to the Titans. Who is the say the old gods were not placed on Azeroth by the titans for this exact reason. None of us were there at the beginning. All we have is speculation. Perhaps the old gods whispers of madness in our ears is no different than Arthas sending enemies our way to strengthen our fighting skills, except it is a design of the Titans to strengthen our mental skills.
The Titans are all about "order", or at least that is what we are lead to believe. Perhaps it is an order like the military. We are being trained to fight for them. That is why there is such a strict adherence to order demanded by the land and the watchers. If we are not developing as they want us to, we will be eliminated.
Perhaps we misunderstood what Algalon was on about when we ran into him in Ulduar. We believed that we accidentally set it off by killing Loken and he, after seeing us and what we could do, decided not to start the reorganization of Azeroth. Perhaps the reason killing Loken set off Algalon was because the Titans believed that their army was revolting and when Alaglon saw that we were not actually revolting and we were still following the path of the titans, he let us live and did not reorganize Azeroth.
He was a safeguard so if the Titans army, namely us, were to revolt, he would reset the world so a new army can be raised from the beginning, one that would not turn on their masters and makers. Once Algalon noticed we were in fact no threat to the masters plan he let us continue on.
The Titans, to our belief, have placed life on countless planets never to return. We believe they are benevolent being offering life, free will, our own being. But perhaps it is not as it seems. They are placing life all over the universe trying to find the perfect situation where they can develop their army. An obedient, powerful army.
Maybe Sargeras noticed this. He noticed that the Titans were trying to develop an army of slaves basically. Strengthened by design to be powerful of both mind and body and obedient to their makers, the Titans. Sargeras needed to do whatever he could to fight for the right of free will. He enlisted whichever being he could get to work with him in whatever way he could woo them to do so. He, and his new followers, went and started to destroy all the worlds the Titans had made with designs of being a soldier factory of sorts.
With whom Sargeras works with it is easy to think of him as the bad guy. Working with demons does not usually give off the feeling that this is a good guy we are looking at, but perhaps it is just a means to an end for him. Not everything is always as it appears. The humanoids, as we know them, the people most similar to us, are all children of the Titans. We are all subjects of the Titans, we are organized to be as the Titans wanted us to be.
We are wild cards, we are the army of the Titans whether we notice it or not. Sargeras could not ask us to help him, could not woo us to help him, could not persuade us to help him, because if he did, the watchers that the Titans left in place, for just such a reason, if we deviated from the path the Titans set for us, would just reorganized Azeroth, wiping us from existence for the sole offense of drifting from the makers plans and having free will.
The day could come where it finally dawns on us, that we are nothing more than pawns in a much greater plan. That it is the Titans in fact that are the true evil in the universe. Twisting the old gods to their service and using them to make us stronger. Sargeras knew what the Titans were doing, he was once one of them, he knew that creating a perfect order to the universe meant that every living being would have to bend to the Titans will and that there would be no individuality left in the universe. Every being alive would have to walk lock step in tune with the will of the Titans or be wiped out.
Sargeras is fighting for our right to feel will. He sides with those we perceive as evil because those were the only beings he could get to work with him, the only ones not pressed under the thumb of the Titans, the only ones that have the free will to join him. They work with him because they want to do so, not because they were designed to do so, which is how we walk with the Titans, by design.
In the future, when we develop more free will, us, the beings that the Titans were developing to be their perfect warriors of mind and body, will fight against our makers and they will rain down upon us with a vengeance we never even imagined could come from them, because we are not listening to their plan, we are not following their rule, and we must be wiped out and Azeroth will need to be reorganized, so they can start over and make a better race, a stronger race, a more obedient race that understands their place, as soldiers of the Titans.
To defeat the Titans we will need to save Sargeras from the Twisting Nether and work with him because for as evil as he might seem, he is the good guy. Always had been, always will be. He was fighting for our right to free will, for our right to not just be servants of the Titans.
Far fetched? Sure. Possible? Absolutely.
We only know what we are told. Do you believe everything you are told? If so, perhaps you are exactly what the Titans want. But if you do not believe everything you have been told, the Titans will remove you from the equation. There is no free will allowed in the Titans universe. Only order. Complete order that follows the Titan design. Sounds pretty evil to me and I guess that means the guy fighting against it, Sargeras, is the good guy then.
For as long as I have been looking into warcraft lore it has always been said that the real big bad of the entire series is Sargeras. That the battle against him would be the last battle, the end of warcraft as we know it. He is the largest threat we can and will ever face.
For a long time now I have been entertaining the idea that what we know is wrong. That the life we lead is not really our own, but we are being groomed as an army, and army for the Titans. Every step of the way, every thing we have done, was us being built into the ultimate army in service of our makers, the Titans.
It reminds me of the story from Wrath of the Lich King some. We never thought anything of it when Arthas came taunting us while we leveled up. We never even considered that he had a greater plan when we fought him, or more accurately, his subordinates along the way. In truth, to anyone that does not follow the lore they might not have noticed the underlining story in wrath and that was that we were not "fighting" our way to the Lich King, we were being groomed by him to become his next, and greatest, lieutenants. Battle tested by the best he could send our way.
He taunted us, he challenged us, he sent waves of enemies after us, but he never engaged us. He could have beaten any of us one on one at any given point, that is beyond contention, but he did not want us dead, he wanted us stronger. In those early days when we were weaker when we first stepped foot into Northrend, we would have been a push over. But did he kill us? No, he let us live to face another challenge.
When all was said and done and we met him face to face, when he allowed us to do so, we lost. He toyed with us the entire fight. We kept thinking we were getting the best of him but we were not. He was just pressing us harder and harder, pushing us to our limits as fighters, warriors, all so he could see if we were indeed worthy.
When he decides that he has had enough playing around and that we had proved ourselves worthy, he kills us. No long drawn out channeled spell. No big effort on his part. He just wishes us dead and we died, instantly, without him ever breaking a sweat.
The idea was that he was now going to revive us and we would be under his servitude. We would be the leaders of his greater, and now unbeatable, army. If the greatest Azeroth had to offer could be killed in an instant with no effort at all by him, what would it look like for the rest of the denizens of Azeroth if those heroes were raised on the side of the Lich King. Not good at all.
We ended up winning the battle with a little bit of luck, or make that a lot of luck. We were dead, we did lose, the Lich King was the most powerful enemy we had ever faced and remains so even up to this day. Even Deathwing, the unmaker of worlds needed a long, very long, cast time to destroy the world whereas Arthas simply wished us dead and we died. We were lucky, never doubt that.
It is that story, and in my opinion the best writing we have ever seen in the warcraft MMO, that made me think that perhaps Sargeras is the good guy. Because not everything always is as it appears. Is blizzard the type to develop such a great bait and switch like that? Keep us thinking that Sargeras is the bad guy only to find out that he is our one and only true savior. I doubt it. Most blizzard writing is not that deep or involved, at least not since the days of the Lich King. But that is where I let my imagination run away with me.
We thought we had the Lich King on the run, but he was playing with us. We never held the upper hand, we never had him running from us, we never had a prayer of beating him, even when he let us just waltz into his throne room. He has control the entire way. He manipulated every step we took, all in an effort to make us stronger. To make us better fighters. All so we would be more of a force to be reckoned with when he revived us as his lieutenants.
This is how I see what the Titans are doing. The Titans might not be these benevolent beings that gave us life, that shaped the world as we know it, that set things in motion so we could live our own lives.
What if the Titans, and everything we have experienced, are all planned out to make us stronger so we would be a more formidable army at their service. Just because we do not know of the great "Army of the Titans" doesn't mean that there is not one. There is very little we know of the Titans and most of what we know is speculation at least and tainted at best.
We believe that they could not kill the old gods so they imprisoned them beneath the crust of the ground. What proof do we have of that? None. What if they were completely capable of killing them, but they didn't for a reason. They wanted them under the ground, they wanted them whispering the murmurs into the minds of man, driving them insane. What if they wanted them there trying to corrupt us so it would weed out those weak of mind. That those whispers in our ears were a test to see who was weak of mind, to see who could resist the madness, to make sure the strong get stronger being able to resist such pressure from the old golds and the weak get eliminated.
The old gods could be a tool, just like we are to the Titans. Who is the say the old gods were not placed on Azeroth by the titans for this exact reason. None of us were there at the beginning. All we have is speculation. Perhaps the old gods whispers of madness in our ears is no different than Arthas sending enemies our way to strengthen our fighting skills, except it is a design of the Titans to strengthen our mental skills.
The Titans are all about "order", or at least that is what we are lead to believe. Perhaps it is an order like the military. We are being trained to fight for them. That is why there is such a strict adherence to order demanded by the land and the watchers. If we are not developing as they want us to, we will be eliminated.
Perhaps we misunderstood what Algalon was on about when we ran into him in Ulduar. We believed that we accidentally set it off by killing Loken and he, after seeing us and what we could do, decided not to start the reorganization of Azeroth. Perhaps the reason killing Loken set off Algalon was because the Titans believed that their army was revolting and when Alaglon saw that we were not actually revolting and we were still following the path of the titans, he let us live and did not reorganize Azeroth.
He was a safeguard so if the Titans army, namely us, were to revolt, he would reset the world so a new army can be raised from the beginning, one that would not turn on their masters and makers. Once Algalon noticed we were in fact no threat to the masters plan he let us continue on.
The Titans, to our belief, have placed life on countless planets never to return. We believe they are benevolent being offering life, free will, our own being. But perhaps it is not as it seems. They are placing life all over the universe trying to find the perfect situation where they can develop their army. An obedient, powerful army.
Maybe Sargeras noticed this. He noticed that the Titans were trying to develop an army of slaves basically. Strengthened by design to be powerful of both mind and body and obedient to their makers, the Titans. Sargeras needed to do whatever he could to fight for the right of free will. He enlisted whichever being he could get to work with him in whatever way he could woo them to do so. He, and his new followers, went and started to destroy all the worlds the Titans had made with designs of being a soldier factory of sorts.
With whom Sargeras works with it is easy to think of him as the bad guy. Working with demons does not usually give off the feeling that this is a good guy we are looking at, but perhaps it is just a means to an end for him. Not everything is always as it appears. The humanoids, as we know them, the people most similar to us, are all children of the Titans. We are all subjects of the Titans, we are organized to be as the Titans wanted us to be.
We are wild cards, we are the army of the Titans whether we notice it or not. Sargeras could not ask us to help him, could not woo us to help him, could not persuade us to help him, because if he did, the watchers that the Titans left in place, for just such a reason, if we deviated from the path the Titans set for us, would just reorganized Azeroth, wiping us from existence for the sole offense of drifting from the makers plans and having free will.
The day could come where it finally dawns on us, that we are nothing more than pawns in a much greater plan. That it is the Titans in fact that are the true evil in the universe. Twisting the old gods to their service and using them to make us stronger. Sargeras knew what the Titans were doing, he was once one of them, he knew that creating a perfect order to the universe meant that every living being would have to bend to the Titans will and that there would be no individuality left in the universe. Every being alive would have to walk lock step in tune with the will of the Titans or be wiped out.
Sargeras is fighting for our right to feel will. He sides with those we perceive as evil because those were the only beings he could get to work with him, the only ones not pressed under the thumb of the Titans, the only ones that have the free will to join him. They work with him because they want to do so, not because they were designed to do so, which is how we walk with the Titans, by design.
In the future, when we develop more free will, us, the beings that the Titans were developing to be their perfect warriors of mind and body, will fight against our makers and they will rain down upon us with a vengeance we never even imagined could come from them, because we are not listening to their plan, we are not following their rule, and we must be wiped out and Azeroth will need to be reorganized, so they can start over and make a better race, a stronger race, a more obedient race that understands their place, as soldiers of the Titans.
To defeat the Titans we will need to save Sargeras from the Twisting Nether and work with him because for as evil as he might seem, he is the good guy. Always had been, always will be. He was fighting for our right to free will, for our right to not just be servants of the Titans.
Far fetched? Sure. Possible? Absolutely.
We only know what we are told. Do you believe everything you are told? If so, perhaps you are exactly what the Titans want. But if you do not believe everything you have been told, the Titans will remove you from the equation. There is no free will allowed in the Titans universe. Only order. Complete order that follows the Titan design. Sounds pretty evil to me and I guess that means the guy fighting against it, Sargeras, is the good guy then.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Monday Random Thoughts
- I actually played a lot this weekend.
- No underlining reasoning to read into that.
- Why I played as actually quite simple.
- I had a new hunter at 100 to play with.
- I think I have really realized something.
- Without valor gear for gearing up alts I have no desire to play them.
- But I still like my hunters.
- I finished off nagrand and finally managed to get to 610 so I could do heroics.
- I had proving ground gold since the day I hit 100, but not the item level.
- Sorry, but if you can manage a proving grounds gold in 580 gear when it only scales down to 610, they really should just disregard the darn item level requirement.
- Either way, once I managed 610 I started my legendary quest line for it.
- Did all 5 dungeons, needless to say, even on a 610 hunter I rocked the place.
- Playing BM to get a feel for it being I know I will have to switch soon.
- I was pulling between 22K-25K on bosses at a 610 item level.
- No, that is not bragging, that is just saying that dungeon bosses die so damn fast when you are doing those numbers so they do not have a chance to fall to more reasonable numbers that reflect what your actual DPS really is.
- I think I understand now why I get these people telling me "I can pull 35K" and then in a raid they are barely scratching the surface of 20K.
- They are probably using their dungeon numbers.
- There is no way in hell my hunter can pull 25K at a 610 item level with no gems and no enchants.
- Not happening, I am just not that good, nor do I think anyone is.
- But on a short fight, that is exactly what my hunter did.
- As far as dungeons goes I had mostly smooth runs, even if I did waste the better part of 6 hours to do 5 dungeons.
- Yes, 6 hours to do five dungeons.
- This is the #1 reason they need to add valor back to the game.
- It gave people the motivation to run dungeons, which in turn made dungeons easier by having better people there, and more importantly, the faster queue times that come with more people doing them.
- I had one group that did not bow down to the uber geared like you sometimes see.
- It was cool to see them kick the guy.
- We zoned in and this priest just started pulling, it was everbloom by the way.
- The tank kept having to scramble to get the mobs the priest pulled and then the priest would run further and pull more.
- Apparently this group works on the same philosophy that I do.
- Your gear does not matter, your numbers do not matter, even people with great gear and great numbers can be bad players.
- So they kicked the 70K DPS priest and we replaced him with a priest damage dealer doing only 6K.
- Yes 6K is dreadful, even for a fresh 100 that faked their way in.
- But the run was a much more enjoyable and pleasant run.
- Bad players come in all shapes and sizes, and the 70K priest was a bad player, glad the group agreed.
- Heck, they started the kick, and he was gone before I ever even got a chance to click yes to the kick.
- So it seems everyone wanted to be done with him.
- Otherwise no real drama in my 5 runs.
- A few good groups, a few slower, but still good, groups, and no other drama.
- I like that, I like the nice quiet life.
- If I can do content and have fun doing it and be completely free of unneeded drama I would be a very happy elf.
- I won something off the last boss in each run.
- Woohoo?
- Oh, you mean you always get something off the last boss.
- In that case, I won nothing.
- Surprise surprise, you do know who you are reading right now right.
- But even if I did not win much I more importantly won enough, with the ring, to get to 615 and thus the LFR item level.
- I ran all the HM LFRs.
- Again, no drama really.
- A few go go go go morons that deserved a slap to the back of the head but that is about it.
- I won a few pieces, but of course with my luck they were the same pieces I had won from the dungeons, so minor upgrades.
- I did manage to get my item level up to 627 with some lucky 610 salvage pieces that replaced really low stuff, a couple of 615 mission pieces and one piece reasonable priced courtesy of he auction house.
- Not enough to get to the BRF ones, so I stopped there.
- I got a total of 22 stones now.
- I thought they said they increased the drop of these things as a catch up mechanic?
- Sorry, I do not see it.
- I have 5 characters past that stage and getting 22 is like a normal week when it first came out.
- 22 is not even a good week when it first came out.
- I remember getting 22 off 4 bosses one week when it first came out.
- So how exactly did they "increase" the drop rate?
- Sorry, I do not see it.
- Then again, it is just my luck right?
- I also did my one random heroic on my new hunter.
- Because I really need the garrison resources.
- I got UBRS which is cool because I had the millhouse quest from my inn.
- We had a group that wanted to do leeroy and they did it well.
- We not only managed to snag leeroy, but we finished the entire dungeon before leeroy came down.
- We had to wait for him after the run was done.
- And it is not like we had "spectacular" numbers blowing things up.
- Just some solid ones.
- Apparently.
- Was a very nice run with 2 new followers, so I was happy.
- I went and tamed gara on my new hunter, figured why the hell, it is beast mastery.
- I read about how long, involved and difficult it was.
- I found it interesting, but not really all that difficult.
- It was more just wasting time running around collecting thing from mobs you could mostly one shot as a level 100.
- The end phase was a little harder.
- But remember, harder does not mean more difficult.
- I attacked one of the spirit things to summon the boss, who summoned instantly, and it took me what felt like a year and a day to down the thing.
- Over 2M health at my item level, this is going to take a while, and it did.
- I was expecting some epic battle with the boss if the trash I needed to clear to summon him had 2M health.
- I was wrong, so very wrong.
- The boss had 600K health and melted like a stick of butter left out on a hot summers day.
- Excuse me blizzard, I think you made a mistake.
- The trash should have had 600K health and the boss 2M health, not the other way around.
- Blizzard and math, they just do not get along.
- One day they need to hire someone that knows what all those strange looking number like things mean, because apparently no one that works there does.
- How did this go live with the trash having more than 3 times the life of the boss?
- It just makes no sense.
- As I said, it was not difficult in any way.
- Just stand in one place and pew pew.
- Worked for both the trash and the boss.
- But hunters should still be happy, we get new skins for our pets every expansion, what class can say they get that type of coolness.
- I'll tell you who, none.
- But I did expect the final fight to be more like the warlock one for green fire and less like a target dummy.
- I had a weird week in game, some good luck and some bad luck.
- We had a dreadful week in heroic.
- Sure we do not raid long, only for 2 hours, but that is usually good for 6 or 7 bosses at least.
- We only managed 3 this week.
- We wiped 6 times on hanz and frans too.
- Do you believe that?
- It was one of those nights were everything that could go wrong went wrong.
- Tank DCed three times.
- The entire raid lagged out once.
- Some stupid mistakes caused another couple of wipes.
- And we wasted more than half our night on one boss that we were one shotting for the last few months.
- I am sure it happens to everyone where you just have one of those nights.
- Our normal night went a little better, but we still suffered a couple if wipes, thanks to me.
- Yes, I own up to my mistakes.
- We did not have a second tank so I was going to tank on my druid.
- Then just as we were about to pull the first boss a tank that is gearing up logged on.
- So I switched to heals, so I can try to get some gear on my druid, as it still needs it.
- Up to 668, so I am almost ready to tank heroic.
- Odd as it might sound, I've been tanking heroic for a long time.
- I guess that is why the call 670 to tank heroic a "suggestion".
- Was funny to say I am almost ready to tank heroics even if I have already done so.
- Back to the story, the other tank came in, I healed, and then on trash to the next boss the DC monster attacked.
- He never came back, so I switch back to tank.
- We one shot flamebender and moved to kromog.
- First pull we wiped because I could not get aggro off the other tank.
- Every time I taunted he would get the boss back almost instantly.
- I've tanked with him before and never had any aggro problems like that.
- Second attempt I compensated and taunted on cooldown to make sure he did not pull it back off of me and we did just fine.
- We ended up wiping at 0%.
- Tough luck wipe, hate those ones.
- 0% just makes me want to cry.
- Seeing a grown bear cry is not a happy moment.
- Then I looked at recount and saw myself doing 8K DPS.
- 8K DPS?
- Even as a tank that is dreadful.
- Oh crap, I never switched back to my tanking gear.
- Well, that explains the aggro issue right there.
- Funny thing is the healers said I was still easy to heal, they never noticed me as being more squishy than normal for a bear.
- Next attempt we down him and moved on of course, but that was a big oops on my part.
- Been a long time since I screwed up that big.
- After the fight when someone was going over the logs and seeing how everyone did I said "I bet I ranked #1 in the world on flamebender tanking in healing gear."
- That got a chuckle.
- At least we one shot it we me in healing gear.
- Guess it goes to prove one thing, or two actually, that tanking is more about using your abilities at the right time as long as you have he natural health for it and that healers can really cover up a lot of mistakes.
- If even one of them said I was squishy I might have noticed sooner.
- But they all said, you seemed fine to me.
- I did mange to win something that was not a ring this week, a helm, so my druid how has a two piece set.
- Woot.
- And there was more druid luck to report.
- I am still using my tanking cloak when healing as I have not managed to snag a healing cloak or even just a straight intellect one.
- So when I finished my highmaul mission, which was only a 655 as I tanked highmaul on my warrior and not my druid, I decided to switch my specialization over to restoration.
- I figured every item in my tanking set, outside of legs, does not need a 655 and at least I might get something for my healing set this way.
- And even if I got legs, it would still be an upgrade to both as those switch stats.
- I got the healing cloak.
- How awesome is that?
- Want more, it had a gem slot too.
- Want even more, it was warforged too.
- I hit the trifecta in that cache.
- Not only did I get a piece I needed but it was warforged with a gem slot.
- Could not ask for more really.
- Funny how winning something you actually need, even if the item level is way below what you are currently doing, is great just because you actually needed it.
- Blizzard needs to not be such tightwads with gear like that.
- Still no weapon for my hunter and how long has this expansion been out?
- Sorry, it should not be that hard to get gear.
- It ruins the fun when you start feeling like "I am doing this for nothing".
- There always needs to be a feeling like you are getting some return on your time investment.
- And this expansion isn't really feeling it.
- Unless you are talking gold.
- I check my gold Friday night before I logged off.
- I checked it again Sunday night before I logged off.
- 22K gold made this weekend.
- I did not do any soloing, I did not do any auction house work, I did not even cycle through all my characters like a mad man, I just did garrison missions on the character I happened to be playing on at the moment.
- I guess if you consider gold a good return for your time investment, this expansion rocks.
- But if gold was always easy to get for you, it is a little lackluster.
- At least from my perspective.
- But at least I am having fun gearing up another hunter.
- At least to LFR level.
- Wish I could go further, but without valor gear, that is where it ends for alts.
- Not going to spend gold gearing alts, that does not work for me, even if it could be done that way.
- An alt is an alt and I do not invest anything other things time playing them into them, unless I have to.
- I miss actually enjoying playing other classes.
- I liked cycling through them and doing stuff to earn valor and buying them a piece of gear here and there.
- Now without a reasonable way to gear them up to raid ready I don't.
- Not even in the slightest.
- This expansion should be retitled, "death of the alts".
- Hopefully next expansion is called, "sorry about that, we fired the guy that came up with warlords gearing".
- Have a great day.
- No underlining reasoning to read into that.
- Why I played as actually quite simple.
- I had a new hunter at 100 to play with.
- I think I have really realized something.
- Without valor gear for gearing up alts I have no desire to play them.
- But I still like my hunters.
- I finished off nagrand and finally managed to get to 610 so I could do heroics.
- I had proving ground gold since the day I hit 100, but not the item level.
- Sorry, but if you can manage a proving grounds gold in 580 gear when it only scales down to 610, they really should just disregard the darn item level requirement.
- Either way, once I managed 610 I started my legendary quest line for it.
- Did all 5 dungeons, needless to say, even on a 610 hunter I rocked the place.
- Playing BM to get a feel for it being I know I will have to switch soon.
- I was pulling between 22K-25K on bosses at a 610 item level.
- No, that is not bragging, that is just saying that dungeon bosses die so damn fast when you are doing those numbers so they do not have a chance to fall to more reasonable numbers that reflect what your actual DPS really is.
- I think I understand now why I get these people telling me "I can pull 35K" and then in a raid they are barely scratching the surface of 20K.
- They are probably using their dungeon numbers.
- There is no way in hell my hunter can pull 25K at a 610 item level with no gems and no enchants.
- Not happening, I am just not that good, nor do I think anyone is.
- But on a short fight, that is exactly what my hunter did.
- As far as dungeons goes I had mostly smooth runs, even if I did waste the better part of 6 hours to do 5 dungeons.
- Yes, 6 hours to do five dungeons.
- This is the #1 reason they need to add valor back to the game.
- It gave people the motivation to run dungeons, which in turn made dungeons easier by having better people there, and more importantly, the faster queue times that come with more people doing them.
- I had one group that did not bow down to the uber geared like you sometimes see.
- It was cool to see them kick the guy.
- We zoned in and this priest just started pulling, it was everbloom by the way.
- The tank kept having to scramble to get the mobs the priest pulled and then the priest would run further and pull more.
- Apparently this group works on the same philosophy that I do.
- Your gear does not matter, your numbers do not matter, even people with great gear and great numbers can be bad players.
- So they kicked the 70K DPS priest and we replaced him with a priest damage dealer doing only 6K.
- Yes 6K is dreadful, even for a fresh 100 that faked their way in.
- But the run was a much more enjoyable and pleasant run.
- Bad players come in all shapes and sizes, and the 70K priest was a bad player, glad the group agreed.
- Heck, they started the kick, and he was gone before I ever even got a chance to click yes to the kick.
- So it seems everyone wanted to be done with him.
- Otherwise no real drama in my 5 runs.
- A few good groups, a few slower, but still good, groups, and no other drama.
- I like that, I like the nice quiet life.
- If I can do content and have fun doing it and be completely free of unneeded drama I would be a very happy elf.
- I won something off the last boss in each run.
- Woohoo?
- Oh, you mean you always get something off the last boss.
- In that case, I won nothing.
- Surprise surprise, you do know who you are reading right now right.
- But even if I did not win much I more importantly won enough, with the ring, to get to 615 and thus the LFR item level.
- I ran all the HM LFRs.
- Again, no drama really.
- A few go go go go morons that deserved a slap to the back of the head but that is about it.
- I won a few pieces, but of course with my luck they were the same pieces I had won from the dungeons, so minor upgrades.
- I did manage to get my item level up to 627 with some lucky 610 salvage pieces that replaced really low stuff, a couple of 615 mission pieces and one piece reasonable priced courtesy of he auction house.
- Not enough to get to the BRF ones, so I stopped there.
- I got a total of 22 stones now.
- I thought they said they increased the drop of these things as a catch up mechanic?
- Sorry, I do not see it.
- I have 5 characters past that stage and getting 22 is like a normal week when it first came out.
- 22 is not even a good week when it first came out.
- I remember getting 22 off 4 bosses one week when it first came out.
- So how exactly did they "increase" the drop rate?
- Sorry, I do not see it.
- Then again, it is just my luck right?
- I also did my one random heroic on my new hunter.
- Because I really need the garrison resources.
- I got UBRS which is cool because I had the millhouse quest from my inn.
- We had a group that wanted to do leeroy and they did it well.
- We not only managed to snag leeroy, but we finished the entire dungeon before leeroy came down.
- We had to wait for him after the run was done.
- And it is not like we had "spectacular" numbers blowing things up.
- Just some solid ones.
- Apparently.
- Was a very nice run with 2 new followers, so I was happy.
- I went and tamed gara on my new hunter, figured why the hell, it is beast mastery.
- I read about how long, involved and difficult it was.
- I found it interesting, but not really all that difficult.
- It was more just wasting time running around collecting thing from mobs you could mostly one shot as a level 100.
- The end phase was a little harder.
- But remember, harder does not mean more difficult.
- I attacked one of the spirit things to summon the boss, who summoned instantly, and it took me what felt like a year and a day to down the thing.
- Over 2M health at my item level, this is going to take a while, and it did.
- I was expecting some epic battle with the boss if the trash I needed to clear to summon him had 2M health.
- I was wrong, so very wrong.
- The boss had 600K health and melted like a stick of butter left out on a hot summers day.
- Excuse me blizzard, I think you made a mistake.
- The trash should have had 600K health and the boss 2M health, not the other way around.
- Blizzard and math, they just do not get along.
- One day they need to hire someone that knows what all those strange looking number like things mean, because apparently no one that works there does.
- How did this go live with the trash having more than 3 times the life of the boss?
- It just makes no sense.
- As I said, it was not difficult in any way.
- Just stand in one place and pew pew.
- Worked for both the trash and the boss.
- But hunters should still be happy, we get new skins for our pets every expansion, what class can say they get that type of coolness.
- I'll tell you who, none.
- But I did expect the final fight to be more like the warlock one for green fire and less like a target dummy.
- I had a weird week in game, some good luck and some bad luck.
- We had a dreadful week in heroic.
- Sure we do not raid long, only for 2 hours, but that is usually good for 6 or 7 bosses at least.
- We only managed 3 this week.
- We wiped 6 times on hanz and frans too.
- Do you believe that?
- It was one of those nights were everything that could go wrong went wrong.
- Tank DCed three times.
- The entire raid lagged out once.
- Some stupid mistakes caused another couple of wipes.
- And we wasted more than half our night on one boss that we were one shotting for the last few months.
- I am sure it happens to everyone where you just have one of those nights.
- Our normal night went a little better, but we still suffered a couple if wipes, thanks to me.
- Yes, I own up to my mistakes.
- We did not have a second tank so I was going to tank on my druid.
- Then just as we were about to pull the first boss a tank that is gearing up logged on.
- So I switched to heals, so I can try to get some gear on my druid, as it still needs it.
- Up to 668, so I am almost ready to tank heroic.
- Odd as it might sound, I've been tanking heroic for a long time.
- I guess that is why the call 670 to tank heroic a "suggestion".
- Was funny to say I am almost ready to tank heroics even if I have already done so.
- Back to the story, the other tank came in, I healed, and then on trash to the next boss the DC monster attacked.
- He never came back, so I switch back to tank.
- We one shot flamebender and moved to kromog.
- First pull we wiped because I could not get aggro off the other tank.
- Every time I taunted he would get the boss back almost instantly.
- I've tanked with him before and never had any aggro problems like that.
- Second attempt I compensated and taunted on cooldown to make sure he did not pull it back off of me and we did just fine.
- We ended up wiping at 0%.
- Tough luck wipe, hate those ones.
- 0% just makes me want to cry.
- Seeing a grown bear cry is not a happy moment.
- Then I looked at recount and saw myself doing 8K DPS.
- 8K DPS?
- Even as a tank that is dreadful.
- Oh crap, I never switched back to my tanking gear.
- Well, that explains the aggro issue right there.
- Funny thing is the healers said I was still easy to heal, they never noticed me as being more squishy than normal for a bear.
- Next attempt we down him and moved on of course, but that was a big oops on my part.
- Been a long time since I screwed up that big.
- After the fight when someone was going over the logs and seeing how everyone did I said "I bet I ranked #1 in the world on flamebender tanking in healing gear."
- That got a chuckle.
- At least we one shot it we me in healing gear.
- Guess it goes to prove one thing, or two actually, that tanking is more about using your abilities at the right time as long as you have he natural health for it and that healers can really cover up a lot of mistakes.
- If even one of them said I was squishy I might have noticed sooner.
- But they all said, you seemed fine to me.
- I did mange to win something that was not a ring this week, a helm, so my druid how has a two piece set.
- Woot.
- And there was more druid luck to report.
- I am still using my tanking cloak when healing as I have not managed to snag a healing cloak or even just a straight intellect one.
- So when I finished my highmaul mission, which was only a 655 as I tanked highmaul on my warrior and not my druid, I decided to switch my specialization over to restoration.
- I figured every item in my tanking set, outside of legs, does not need a 655 and at least I might get something for my healing set this way.
- And even if I got legs, it would still be an upgrade to both as those switch stats.
- I got the healing cloak.
- How awesome is that?
- Want more, it had a gem slot too.
- Want even more, it was warforged too.
- I hit the trifecta in that cache.
- Not only did I get a piece I needed but it was warforged with a gem slot.
- Could not ask for more really.
- Funny how winning something you actually need, even if the item level is way below what you are currently doing, is great just because you actually needed it.
- Blizzard needs to not be such tightwads with gear like that.
- Still no weapon for my hunter and how long has this expansion been out?
- Sorry, it should not be that hard to get gear.
- It ruins the fun when you start feeling like "I am doing this for nothing".
- There always needs to be a feeling like you are getting some return on your time investment.
- And this expansion isn't really feeling it.
- Unless you are talking gold.
- I check my gold Friday night before I logged off.
- I checked it again Sunday night before I logged off.
- 22K gold made this weekend.
- I did not do any soloing, I did not do any auction house work, I did not even cycle through all my characters like a mad man, I just did garrison missions on the character I happened to be playing on at the moment.
- I guess if you consider gold a good return for your time investment, this expansion rocks.
- But if gold was always easy to get for you, it is a little lackluster.
- At least from my perspective.
- But at least I am having fun gearing up another hunter.
- At least to LFR level.
- Wish I could go further, but without valor gear, that is where it ends for alts.
- Not going to spend gold gearing alts, that does not work for me, even if it could be done that way.
- An alt is an alt and I do not invest anything other things time playing them into them, unless I have to.
- I miss actually enjoying playing other classes.
- I liked cycling through them and doing stuff to earn valor and buying them a piece of gear here and there.
- Now without a reasonable way to gear them up to raid ready I don't.
- Not even in the slightest.
- This expansion should be retitled, "death of the alts".
- Hopefully next expansion is called, "sorry about that, we fired the guy that came up with warlords gearing".
- Have a great day.
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